Mock Oriental Shrimp Recipe for One

Okay, okay, this is a little off the beaten path for this blog. But I do need to eat and sometimes I’m in a hurry! I was scratching my head this evening trying to decide what I could do with about a cup and half of angel hair pasta that I had cooked two days prior.

Then the thought hit me. Shrimp! (Food Lion generally has a has a good price on the frozen, cooked, deveined ones.) Hum. How should I fix it so it is something new? I love shrimp but sometimes we get stuck in a rut and I wanted to get a little creative when I spotted a little bottle of McCormick Garlic Pepper Seasoning Grinder that my kids had purchased one year when they came to visit over the holidays. (They surprised me by cooking dinner for the family. Awesome, huh?) Anyway, I digress. Back to the meal for one.

I keep a lot of assorted frozen veggies in the freezer because I can use what I want out of the bag and then re-close the bag and slam the bag back into the freezer. In this case I decided to use a little cauliflower and a few peas. You could use any assortment of frozen vegetables you might like. The shrimp I buy is fully cooked and deveined.

To speed up the meal I use the microwave. I half thawed the 6 shrimp and the chosen vegetables, it is a small amount so with water added in a small blow I only heated the frozen shrimp for about 1 minute, full power. The veggies about 2 minutes, full power. Enough of the back story! Here is the make shift recipe of a mock oriental shrimp dish for one.

This is what you need and here is what you do. Takes less than 20-30 minutes to prepare.

Small 5-7 inch frying pan

2 TBS Olive Oil (just enough to coat the bottom of pan)

1/4 tsp dried Parsley

1/8 tsp Celery Seed

4 or 5 twists of the McCormick Garlic Pepper “Grinder”

4 or 5 dashes of Soy Sauce (to taste)

6 Frozen precooked deveined shrimp

1 1/2 cup left over pasta (I used angel hair)

5-6 frozen cauliflower florets

1 tsp frozen peas

Prep:

First half thaw the 6 shrimp, barely covered in water using small bowl, 1 minute in microwave

Second half thaw the cauliflower combined with peas, barely covered in water using small bowl, 2 minutes in microwave

Set both bowls aside till needed.

This will be very quick because you are almost done!!

Now place the small fry pan on medium high heat on stove top (number 6 on my electric stove)

Add the olive oil, parsley, celery seed, garlic pepper into pan first

Next drain water and add the half thawed shrimp, flip once to coat in spices, about 30 seconds on each side

Then drain water and add the peas and cauliflower, flip again, same 30 seconds each side

Add the pasta (mine was the angel hair), flip again to coat with all ingredients, 30 seconds each side

Last add your 4 or 5 dashes of soy sauce and flip a couple of times again.

Voila you are done!! A meal for one that takes less than 20 to 30 minutes. If you want to do it for more, like two, just double up on the ingredients.

I wish I would have taken a picture but I was too hungry and I ate it before I thought about taking a picture or making this recipe public. When I make it again, because it was yummy, I will post a picture.

I ran a few errands this morning. I was looking for some pipe cleaners – not the pvc kind either, LOL. I needed them to clean my cats water fountain which has some very hard to reach areas. Hence my need for the pipe cleaners.

Well, I get to the first store and find out they don’t carry them. Second store I stopped by was a drug store. I asked the gal at the register for the pack of pipe cleaners and she rang them up. At that point you would normally pay. Not this time. I was totally shocked when she looked at me and asked me my birth date!

OKAY, I’m an antique by now and you can kind of look at me and realize that I am old enough to purchase a pack of pipe cleaners! Apparently I’m very old school and asked her why she needed to type my date of birth into the register. She told me she had no choice and could not sell them to me without that information. You know what she said… “The pipe cleaners are considered a tobacco product”.

Give me a break! I told her how ridiculous this sounded. To be honest I don’t know if this is a new rule, regulation or just store policy. I wonder if I went to a craft store would they card me for the same product? Idiocy.

Orwellian Scariness

When I was in high school I read two books by George Orwell. Animal Farm and 1984. This might not have been such a good idea because even though I was a lousy reader at the time, I couldn’t put those books down! At the time those books really spooked me out and I have remembered the stories my whole life. Just ask my kids. ‘snicker’

I remember when the first George Bush presented his speech to Congress and used the words “New World Order”, I almost fell off the couch. That statement gave me chills. Here we are in 2013 and what has happened to this country in my lifetime is nothing less than scary to me. I guess the Bushs are really proud of their legacy, advancing progressive state-ism. Don’t get me wrong the progressive Republican Bush is just the first one to say it out loud. The progressive Democrats were just a bit more stealthily until Obama got his second term. Now, even NATO is trying to infringe themselves into our country’s laws and regulations.

When we came to the United States, capitalism was the way of life and it was not frowned on. We didn’t have big corporate gouger companies. Companies and Corporations came and went based on their performance. For those to young to have learned what capitalism is it is called competition in the market place. No one was bailed out by the government for their bad decisions. Let alone rewarding bad CEO’s with crazy bonuses.

This government’s elitists have given themselves so much power for so long they have lost touch with the general public and, with the exception of a few new comers who are standing ground, most just don’t give a damn about public freedoms and liberty. Amazing how the elitists give themselves exemption to all the rules they lay on us.

Everyone in the press keeps making excuses for this administration and their progressive cohorts. Awe they just don’t know, they are naive, they don’t lie they just embellish the truth, etc. etc. There is no excuse for trying to rid us of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Those progressives know darn well what they are doing! Control of the little people. Making sure they are uneducated, giving all the freebies for votes. I just see it as another form of slavery.

Talk about education. Common Core is really insidious. Talk about scary, collecting data on our children from age 5 to 20. If you are a parent you really need to study up on this effort being supported by many with large amounts of wealth. That program even negates our privacy laws. And all done “for the good of the children”.

Obama Care (Affordable Health Care), which the congress couldn’t take the time to read, undermines all small business giving the edge to the larger corporations, like General Electric, who can eat the costs of compliance. Hum, and I think they didn’t even have to pay taxes. Just a little loop hole in our ever growing tax structure. I’ve shared my feelings about this in a previous post.

Sequester has been in the news a lot recently. Yet this administration was given the option by the House to manage the sequester and the White House refused that option. Lets just make it hurt where it would affect everyone as harshly as possible. So, the White House tours shut down, releasing criminals from jails, the administration can order a remake of Gitmo but the administration hasn’t got the money to refurbish ships due to sequester.

The Federal Reserve printing endless money which only pads the stock market. QE Forever. Double Bubble toil and trouble. I recently heard that the government wants banks to ease their rules for new home loans. Isn’t that a bubble that crashed the first time? Oh, yes, we need to do that one again – sarcasm here.

The Postal Service wanted to make necessary cuts and the Congress says no to their efforts. Eventually leading to another bail out, I’m sure.

The Regulation nation has become the reality. Controlling near about everyone from small business to farming, energy resources,water, fishing, air, and anything else under the guise of being Green. Global warming has now become Extreme weather. Have you noticed how they are naming so many storms on the weather channel? Who does this help? Why insurance companies of course. Most policies have higher deductibles for named storms or disclaimers. Get this, in my neck of the woods, my policy can’t give me market replacement value because I’m in a zoned historical and flood section of the city. Double trouble. I even called my insurance agent at one point and, snidely, asked him if my house were destroyed in a storm would I have enough money to build four cinder block walls and a roof because the city won’t allow me to put a trailer on an empty lot.

Where are the Women’s Rights Activists condemning what the Radical Muslims are doing to women, children and, quit frankly, anyone who doesn’t agree with their sharia laws. Don’t get me wrong there are peaceful, fair minded Muslims here in this country. Muslims who have assimilated into the American way of life. But what is going on in the middle east and even other parts of the world like England where they are protecting sharia under their own laws. Might I mention China’s rules on males and female babies. How come the bra burning women’s activists aren’t raising hell about that kind of treatment instead of raising hell about birth control pills?

Then you have the stupid media pundents making dumb comments comparing our country’s relationship with Canada is like that of the Israelis and Palestinians. Give me a break! I don’t think Canada (our friend) has ever dropped bombs across our borders.

It is just so despicable for these progressive politicians and even President Obama jumping on the gun control band wagon because of the Sandy Hook shooting. How many children do they want to have in the news tearing paper, eating pop tarts, pointing fingers in the shape of a gun? Putting fear in a parents right to take a picture of his child holding a rifle, he was trained to use, to share with friends. Ending up with police knocking on your family home.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the ridiculous spending. Spending money on programs to study snails and fruit flies sexual habits. The green energy companies wasting tax payer dollars without even expecting financial rewards for the stock holders. Lavish trips trips and more trips. Just so much pork and waste in spending in this government is mind boggling. Does the Senate really need free haircuts?

And ol’ Harry Reid won’t bring anything to the table to have a vote on a damn thing. God forbid something might be brought before the President to sign. Oh, unless it is an agenda during a crises that they want to shove down our throats. Then, of course, there is always the trusty faithful Executive Order. I almost forgot that goody. Just skip congress altogether! These dudes can’t balance a budget and I’ve been waiting since Ronald Reagan to see a secured boarder.

Let us not forget that the safety and fairness guys are encroaching into athletics now. No head bumping, no dodge ball, no recognition of honors students. Of course we can’t forget the PC (Politically Correct) police. You cannot say Islamist, gun, illegal immigrant.

I just know that reading George Orwell’s writings was probably foreshadowing for what has now become my future. Lets turn everyone into Sheeple!

The Planter Project on Castors

If you have read my blog before you already know I keep and maintain a small city garden. The one thing I always have difficulty with is quick growing, early spring and short season crops due to the fact that the sun is so low in the sky my home shades most of the garden. Our temperatures are pretty mild but the vegetation still needs a lot of sun.

So, I thought maybe I could get some sort of planter that I could move around. Plus I could save space in the main garden for vegetables that I can process and freeze. I could buy gardening seeded tape strips and grow smaller harvests of things like assorted lettuce and radishes. These veggies are so good but I generally end up giving most of it away since a row in the main garden becomes ripe at the same time.

I decided to check out various ideas on YouTube channels. I came up with an idea from three of the videos I watched and immediately sent these videos to my Project Manager (my mom’s hubby). I laugh because without his expertise I wouldn’t be able to begin to figure out what my needs would be. He said we could make one pretty easily. He would be the crafter – he has the tools – and I would be the helper.

We made our trip to Home Depot for the supplies we needed. Galvanized screws, two by fours, sealer, nuts and bolts and casters. When we came back and went to work sawing the lumber into the measured pieces.

There had to be some support for the legs on the bottom where the casters would be placed so we used some 1 x 6 inch board to make the legs stable. Most of the time I was holding or moving things around but my Project Manager did tutor me in using a drill and learning the electric screwdriver because I need practice with those tools!

After we got all the pieces cut then we started to put the box together. The Project Manager had left over sheathing from a previous shed project so that saved on some of the cost. This is the material we used for the walls of the box.

Then we ran into a little snag. I was a little too short for the planter. Well, I suppose I would have been close enough to eat the veggies right out of the box! Laughing to myself.

Anyway, not to be demoralized we continued on and made the legs shorter. Project Manager, also, made the allowance for those castors that had to go on the bottom. This little delay didn’t take very long to fix. Just a few drilled holes. Oh, I forgot to mention that we drilled all the screw holes first before using the screws so we wouldn’t split any wood.

Here is a view from the top before the bottom was put on as this last piece would have to have a drain hole. The second picture is from the side before the castors went on.

This is where we placed a cross beam for extra support because after the dirt is put into the box and water is added it will get heavier.

The drain hole was put into the bottom. As one of the YouTube videos pointed out, I will be able to place a bucket underneath to catch the water and reuse it to water again. Neat huh?

Inserted into the hole is a wired drain catch that you can buy at most Dollar Stores. I will put some small pebbles into the catch before I put the dirt into the box so that I don’t loose to much soil while the water drains out.

After we were finished putting everything together the Project Manager and I lifted the planter onto the truck bed and drove it to my home.

My next job was to paint with two coats of sealer and two coats of exterior paint. This turned out to take a little longer because the weather forecast called for rain. The sealer and paint had to have temperatures in the 50’s before it could be applied. I did get the first coat of sealer on the box and then moved it into the patio to keep it out of the weather. The humidity would take the second coat longer to dry but nothing would get wet from rain.

The sealer I used was purchased at Home Depot and is called Henry Sealer and Damp Proofer. It will not make the soil toxic as far as I have read. Painting this puppy was a little tricker that I thought because I felt so much like a contorsionist. A few aches and pains but I will get over them for a project well done.

Voila with two coats of sealer and two coats of exterior paint and a movable planter box is born! Tomorrow I will be able to add the dirt and plant the seeds.

Measurements of this planter box are approximately 47 1/2 inches long, 16 inches wide, 36 inches high and the box itself is 12 inches deep.

Re-purposing Lace Curtains

I have a lot of really nice lace curtains that were made in Germany so the type of hanger system isn’t quite the same as here in the United States. Over the years I have figured out how to use them with various hooks, they even worked well with a finagled shower curtain loop.

When I moved into this home, however, I found that these lovely curtains would not fit to many of the windows without resewing them. I did find smaller panels when I first moved in but since they have been hanging on the same windows for at least 15 years the panels have been damaged by the sun and constant cleaning. It was time for them to go.

The project has an extra day! I inherited this Bernina Record sewing machine from my Aunt, who was a professional seamstress. Well, it took me an extra day figuring out how to use it. Thank goodness the “basics book” was with the machine, inside the console. I must admit that the machine sewed like a champ once I finally got it going. I did have to make a run to the store and buy some more needles because I wasn’t careful and broke the only one I had. *blushing now*

Preparing the fabric. First I had to release the ruffling string on the top so I could get some solid measurements by laying the fabric flat. My living room was almost too small.

I must have measured the window and lace ten times because if I didn’t leave enough allowance for the rod casing there would be no second chance. Since the curtain came with a hemmed weight in the bottom I knew I wouldn’t have to sew a new hem at the bottom. But the top would have to be exact.

First step was to cut the top.

Then I needed to fold the lace in half because I would be making two new panels to cover four windows, two windows on either side of the room.

The next step was to seam the top rod casing. Pinning and measuring then ironing the lace where the seams would be sewn. I allowed enough fabric to make a one inch ruffle on top and enough room for the rod to slide through. Total of about three inches.

Here is a snap of the left and right side of the room with the finished lace curtains that have been adapted to a standard curtain rod.

In with the new and out with the old. Project done. Thanks for reading.

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